Technology | Media | Telecommunications

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Film industry analysts everywhere are still talking about the amazing success of Avatar at the cinema box-office. Some analysts believe the next frontier for 3D content is within the home.

Around 22.5 million homes worldwide will be watching high-definition 3D TV content within five years, according to the latest market study by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Backed by video content owners, broadcasters and pay-TV platforms, 3D TV is expected to be in 1.6 percent of all homes globally by 2015.

"However, the market will still be very immature by 2015, so significant growth opportunities exist beyond this date," said Simon Murray, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

North America is expected to continue leading the way in terms of 3D TV homes during the forecast period, with 9.2 million homes receiving 3D TV signals by 2015.

Western Europe is expected to be the second-largest region for 3D TV reception, with 6.8 million homes receiving such services by the end of 2015, and the Asia-Pacific region is predicted to come in third with 4.6 million homes.

"We believe that 3D TV will take off, but we also believe that 3D TV viewing will be limited until the technology has progressed sufficiently to remove the viewer's need to wear glasses -- which we estimate will be beyond our forecast period," said Mr. Murray.

Other limiting factors anticipated for 3D TV growth include a lack of content, high production costs, scarcity of channels, network bandwidth constraints and the high cost of HD 3D television sets.